PEGASUS NEWS

THE HEADMASTER WRITES...

I had not planned on being away from school at all this week but sometimes things come along that are too im-portant to miss and the memorial service of an old university friend of mine on Thursday was one such occasion.

These events are always difficult but over 700 people came together yester-day afternoon to celebrate the life of someone taken from us too soon. De-spite being emotionally very difficult, there was a collective joy in the fact we had all been lucky enough to know someone of such character and spirit. The reason for writing about this rather personal note in this public newsletter is by way of an introduction to an article referred to by one of the readers, which I thought I would share with you. It was published a few years ago now and comes from the Daily Mail (not a natural hunting ground for my normal research for newsletters but on this occasion it fits the bill very well!). The article was entitled ‘12 Secrets of Being Happy’ and it lists the following:- 1. Accept what you have 2. Enjoy what you do 3. Live for today 4. Choose happiness 5. Cherish Relationships 6. Stay busy 7. Don’t compare 8. Be yourself 9. Stop worrying 10. Get organised 11. Think positive 12. Value happiness It is an interesting list and it made me reflect on my car journey the day before with my daughter coming back from her school as she was asking me what I thought she should do in life. She is in Year 10 and so is starting to think about

A levels and this could have a bearing on the type of career that she will be head-ing into. As a former Head of Sixth Form, I used to have these sorts of con-versations on a daily basis but it seemed that whatever avenue we explored to-gether, she seemed to be turned off by the type of work or by the projected earnings. I find this second part very difficult indeed to advise on. From the list above, we can see that ‘enjoy what you do’ and ‘choose happiness’ are two of the elements to a happy life. No-where on the list does it talk about mon-ey but yet there is a certain reality that money buys one choices and that life without a certain level of money can be very difficult. But what is the right bal-ance? Personally, from the moment I chose to become a teacher, I never looked back and I have loved coming to work ever since. This has suited me. I have other friends who have gone to work to ensure they can give their family a secure future with a focus on career earnings rather than job satisfaction - and this has worked for them. But it is worth taking a step back from time to time in order to think about what we value in life. Reading through this list and thinking about our own mindsets and what it is that we value on a person-al level is an interesting thing to do. I will be eternally proud that the first line of our most recent inspection report was ‘this is a happy school’ because whatev-er we want to do in life, school days should be happy days. I don’t necessari-ly believe they will be the best days of our children’s lives but I sincerely hope they will remember them as happy days in years to come. And whatever our per-spective, events come along from time to time that remind us the importance of the third item on the list, that we should ‘live for today’ because we never know what bumps in the road we may face tomorrow.

AUTUMN TERM

ISSUE 11

FRIDAY 2 DECEMBER 2016

Inside this issue:

Early Years Update 2

Prep School Update

4

School Notices & Sports Fixtures

6

Match Reports 7

PTA News 8

AFTER SCHOOL CARE MOBILE NUMBERS

ASC team members can be contacted on the following numbers between 3.30pm

and 6.00pm each day. If you are running late to

collect your child from ASC, please give the staff on duty a quick call to let

them know. Thank you!

Yellow, Red, Blue Room & Reception:

07783 198998

Years 1-11 (Mrs Bahri): 07986 316132

TERM DATES 2016-17 AUTUMN TERM 2016 Term ends—Tues 13 Dec SPRING TERM 2017 Term starts—Thurs 5 Jan Half term—Mon 13—Fri 17 Feb Term ends - Fri 31 Mar SUMMER TERM 2017 Term starts—Mon 24 Apr Half term—Mon 29 May—Fri 2 Jun Term ends—Fri 7 Jul

AUTUMN TERM ISSUE 11

FRI DAY 2 DEC 2016

PEGASUS NEWS

The children have managed to keep warm in this rather chilly weather as the exciting events and activi-ties in the Early Years this week have certainly left them with a warm glow inside. The classrooms are beginning to come alive as the children have shared their home made decorations and Nursery children are gradually building their own Santa’s Grotto after the excitement of seeing the PTA's Christmas Grotto and Father Christmas. I noticed that two Elves have arrived in Reception this week and the children have named them ‘Smiley’ and ‘Fluffy’ - I can’t wait to hear about what they will be getting up to over the coming weeks! The excitement continues next week as we look forward to our Christmas lunch together on Friday and another special visitor is coming on Friday morning to see the Nursery and Reception children. Appar-ently he is a good friend of the Elves, Smiley and Fluffy! I wonder who it could be?

YELLOW ROOM The Yellow Room children have been busy this week as they prepared for their Christmas celebration performance. They love to watch the older children perform during rehearsals and it is really wonder-ful for them to observe what happens as they grow through the setting and become so confident, ready for when it is their turn to step up onto the big stage for longer. We have also enjoyed using the sparkly glitter and printing with paint using different shapes to make patterns when decorating their own star headbands for the performance. Some of the children had fun playing in the fallen leaves, listening to the rustling sounds as they ran and walked in them; they gathered the leaves using their hands and threw them up into the air and watched them float back down again. We played with the large cardboard boxes, pushing and pulling them across the playground together and then hiding in them when playing a game of 'Hide and Seek.'

EARLY YEARS UPDATE BY MRS HARRIS

AUTUMN TERM ISSUE 11

FRI DAY 2 DEC 2016

PEGASUS NEWS

RED AND BLUE ROOMS The rooms have been filled with festive cheer as the children began to explore Christmas themed activities. Our week started with the children bringing in their home-made Christmas decorations to decorate our Christmas tree in the nursery entrance. The tree looks amazing covered in unique, one of a kind decorations. The children have enjoyed exploring their sense of taste as they have tasted different types of fruits and sandwich fillings. The staff have absolutely loved delivering the topic of our senses and the children have been fully engaged in all of the activities provided.

On Thursday afternoon, the children had their singing voices at the ready as they performed 'The Sleepy Shepherd'. I think you will agree that the children looked amazing in their sheep costumes and they sang beautifully. The Christmas fun continued on Friday as the children enjoyed visiting Santa and participating in lots of creative Christmas activities. The nursery was a hive of festive music and cheer! Thank you to the PTA for organising this wonderful event.

RECEPTION This week, the Reception classes have been full of mischief and mayhem with the arrival of two special guests sent from the North Pole! Santa wrote to the children explaining how busy he was and to see if the children were making good choices, he sent two of his most trustworthy Elves. The children began the week by writing their lists to Santa, telling him what they would like for Christmas and then the Elves set tasks for the children to complete throughout the week. The children had to ‘Elf themselves’ - make decorations using fruit loops and find all the candy canes they had hidden around the class-rooms! Each morning the children arrived in anticipation, waiting to see what silly things the Elves had got up to during the night. The Elves were caught making snow angels in magic Elf dust, hanging from the class number line, putting all the numbers on the number line in the wrong order, turning Mrs Schroff’s phonic cards upside down, and they had even wrapped the class Christmas tree up with tissue paper! The Elves have enjoyed watching the children work really hard on their learning this week, but in particular they were amazed at their performance of the EYFS Christmas celebration play, ‘The Sleepy Shepherd.’ They loved the beautiful singing and were impressed at how the children had re-membered their words for their parts in the play. Well done Reception! To finish the week, the chil-dren had fun visiting Santa and being creative with lots of festive activities during Friday afternoon’s Christmas Fair. A big thank you to the PTA for organising such wonderful activities and really getting us into the Christmas spirit.

THIS WEEK IN EARLY YEARS

AUTUMN TERM ISSUE 11

FRIDAY 2 DEC 2016

PEGASUS NEWS

PREP SCHOOL UPDATE BY MS FIELD

KEY STAGE 1: Year 1 children have been busy bees again this week! The highlight of the week for many was geography when the children were tasked with creating circu-lar My World books. This half of term we have been discussing where we live, our journeys to school and our place in the world. Everyone did a super job of cutting out pictures of the world, the British Isles and Berkshire before sticking them onto circles of paper to create a book. The children then drew Long Close and a self portrait to finish them off. Well done Year 1 - they look fabulous! On Thursday we all got into the Christmas spirit as we enjoyed watching the Early Years 'Sleepy Shep-herd' Nativity. It was super to see all of Year 1 supporting the younger members of the school as they prepare for their own Christmas productions on Monday. We look forward to seeing you all there for some songs and festive cheer! What fun the Year 2 children had this week putting their measuring skills to the test! The children were keen to show off the wonderful metre snakes that they created over the weekend. What a cre-ative bunch- sourcing so many different materials to help them, ranging from loom bands to Christ-mas tinsel! It was great to see the children in action applying their mathematical knowledge learnt from last week to this week’s task. Estimating the length of each snake and measuring the correct length using a metre ruler correctly. Well done everybody! In science, the children explored how different forces work by carrying out various activities with toy cars (see photos below). The children have been busy attending rehearsals this week ready for the KS1 Nativity performance next week on Monday 5th December. All teachers involved are extremely proud of all the hard work, dedication and effort the children have put into learning their lines, projecting their voices and per-fecting the songs. They cannot wait to perform to you all!

AUTUMN TERM ISSUE 11

FRIDAY 2 DEC 2016

PEGASUS NEWS

PREP SCHOOL UPDATE BY MS FIELD

KEY STAGE 2: Year 3 were very excited to finally show off their wonderful acting, singing and dancing skills to their parents and the rest of the school on Monday morning. They really enjoyed the assembly and were happy that the audience did too. In geography, the children discovered how the Anglo-Saxons, Vi-kings, Romans and Celtics had a huge influence on our town and cities names in the United Kingdom. They were eager to look through atlases to spot the origins of place names from around the country. In art, the children added spectacular silhouettes to the beautifully painted sunsets of the Egyptian pyramids. What an eventful week! After Year 4's excitement at receiving our wonderful letters from our pen pals in Wales, we have spent this week creating Christmas cards and letters, replying to the many questions we were asked about our school and where we live. The classroom discussions were so interesting as the children's names were so different in both schools. We have also been discussing the unusual collective nouns that are used to describe different groups of nouns. Did you know that a group of hippos is called a bloat?! What fabulous made up and inventive names the children came up with for homework! In maths, both classes have been continuing with their times table speed - make sure you practice! Year 5 have been working on character description this week, focusing on the characters from The Wolves of Willoughby Chase story. The children wrote descriptions of Miss Slighcarp, a strict gover-ness taking charge in Bonnie's parents' absence, and they came up with questions that they would like to ask her. They also got involved in a range of games to get into character role and played 'hot seat'. In science, the pupils investigated how gas travels, making their own wind fans and explored which ones are most aerodynamic. Their 'hot air detector' machines were so fascinating. Pure ingenuity! In Year 6 maths, set 1 have been extending earlier work on volume by inves-tigating painted cubes. They have been using cubes to work out the volume and then exploring how many of these cubes had three faces showing and how many had two, one and zero. They used this information to work out a mathematical pattern and make predictions. In DT, Year 6 are making mo-torised toy cars. They have now designed their templates and are ready to construct the cars.

PEGASUS CERTIFICATES

Congratulations to the most recent Pegasus certificate winners: 1H Jeevan Samra 1S Ronav Virmani

2M Ayman Mahmood 2W Elina Wason 3I Dawud Rana 3R Lara Gajree

4M Aamnah Mehdi 4R Arya Baradhwaj

5C Chidambaram Mal-ladi

5R Simardeep Singh 6F Jeevan Sidhu

6O Nishi Bosamia

AUTUMN TERM ISSUE 11

FRI DAY 2 DEC 2016

PEGASUS NEWS

SCHOOL NOTICES & SPORTS FIXTURES

SCHOOL EVENTS FOR W/C 5 and 12 DEC 2016 Monday 5 December 2016: KS1 Nativity (2:30pm) Thursday 8 December 2016: Carol Service for all pupils in Years 3-11 at St Mary’s Church, Slough (6-7:15pm) Friday 9 December 2016: Christmas Lunch Day for all pupils (11:30am-2pm) Tuesday 13 December 2016: Last day of Autumn Term 2016 Please note that there will be no Clubs, Prep or After School Care on the last day of term. Sibling cover only will operate between 3:30 and 4pm. All pupils in Nursery-Year 2 should be collected by 3:30pm. All pupils in Years 3-11 to be collected by 4pm.

AFTER SCHOOL CLUBS Please note that following the amend-ments to the After School Clubs list for the Prep and Senior Schools, the dead-line for booking clubs online has been moved to 9am on Tuesday 6 December.

SPORTS FIXTURES FOR W/C 5 DECEMBER 2016 Monday 5 December—Sports Hall Athletics Competition (A) - 12:30pm

PREP SCHOOL CHRISTMAS PARTIES The Prep School are very excited about their forthcoming Christmas parties and they will be held on the following days: Friday 9th December: Years 4, 5 & 6 Monday 12th December: Years 1, 2 & 3

SPORTS KIT BAG STORAGE Please be aware that we are introducing a new system for kit bag storage at the school. Bags should be placed in the storage sheds on arrival at school in the morning

Pupils should take their trainers out of bags and take to classrooms (so they have them to hand ready to put on for morning and lunch break)

The sheds will be locked when the pupil gate gets locked

The sheds will be opened so that pupils can get their PE/Games kit just before PE/Games les-sons

The sheds will then remain open from the end of games and overnight We hope that this new system will help to reduce the incidents of kit going missing.

PARKING AT UPTON COURT CAR PARK During the current dark nights, please could we politely ask that parents are particu-larly vigilant when driving and parking in the car park. Please also we also remind parents to park in marked bays only. Many thanks.

AUTUMN TERM ISSUE 11

FRI DAY 2 DEC 2016

PEGASUS NEWS

U9B HOCKEY v DAIR HOUSE Our Under 9B hockey team played their last match of the season against Dair House on Tuesday 22nd November. The team played very well and linked up with many passes in order to take the lead before half time. Goal scorers were Laiba Majid, Aam-nah Medhi, Isha Kolley and Sivakami Mal-ladi. In the second half, the experience of Long Close showed and Paramjot Bhambra and Kismut Badesha kept the opposition out of the scoring zone. The final score was 5-0 to Long Close and player of the match was Aamnah Medhi. Congratulations!

MATCH REPORTS

U13 FOOTBALL V ST JAMES SENIOR BOYS’ SCHOOL The team were confident coming into this match as we have played St James’ before and beat them. However everything changed as from the kick off. St James’s defence was very strong—we only made it past them a few times but were unable to score. Our defence started solidly too however the opposition did get past us more than we did them. St James’s had many shots and unfortunately for us, four of them hit the back of the net. We were devastated to go in at the end of the half 4-0 down. After half time, we walked back on that pitch with determination, having made some changes to our line-up. We remained determined but conceded another four goals. We were now 8-0 down. So we had a team talk and said, ‘We need a goal and it doesn’t matter if we lose, as long as we gave a good fight.’ Unfortunately, we never did get our goal but we walked off that pitch knowing that we should have never underestimated them and that we had tried our hardest. This match did result in us los-ing our winning streak but we will never give up trying. By Khyan Speding, Year 7J U13 FOOTBALL V ST GEORGE’S WINDSOR We went onto the pitch with confidence that we were going to win as we had played this team be-fore and beaten them. Their defence was not as strong as ours. We never left any weaknesses how-ever St George’s left gaps in their defence that we passed through to score three goals (two from Jorsh Padda and one from Harrison Jones). When the whistle blew for half time with no goals for St George’s, we knew we had won. We walked back onto the pitch after half time with a different line up that kept changing as we wanted all players to have a chance. We did score four more goals. These were scored by Sarum Tariq, Sunpreet Multani, Tegh Banse and Jorsh Padda. On one occasion, we did concede one goal but we were still winning. We didn’t let that goal put us off. In the end, the result was 7-1, giving us a record of W-W-W-D-L-W. We are very proud of our results at the moment and we hope to continue trying our hardest. By Khyan Speding, Year 7J

U9A HOCKEY v HOLY FAMILY On Tuesday 29 November, our U9A hockey team played their final match of the season against Holy Family. It was extremely cold and both teams did very well to maintain a flow of passes and link up their play in such conditions. Holy Family had not played a fixture before and very soon Long Close started to score a number of goals. In the spirit of fair play, a decision was made to make the fixture a coaching match and this gave every-body the opportunity to learn more in the process. The Long Close team of Mariyah Ahmad, Suhani Jain, Sara Butt, Saloni Bhagi, Diya Dosanjh and Kismut Badesha all co-operated fully with the changes made and were a credit to the school. Well done! Player of the fixture was Mariyah Ahmad.

AUTUMN TERM ISSUE 11

FRIDAY 2 DECEMBER 2016

PEGASUS NEWS

PTA NEWS

Wow, what a fun afternoon it has been! The excitement was building around the school all morning and the Fair opened its doors to everyone at 3:30pm. We’d like to say a big thank you for your support with donations and attendance at the Fair itself. We hope your children enjoyed themselves! Thank you to all of the volunteers—both parents and staff—and to all the Year 5-Year 9 students who ran stalls on the day. A special mention also goes to Vidhi Pankhania for organising the carol singing for everyone at this year’s event. We will provide more of an update next week, but if you have any feedback in the meantime, please contact your class reps or the PTA via our email address at long-closeschoolpta@gmail.com. Stay in contact with us -

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